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Feedback on TidBITS Size Change

Feedback on TidBITS Size Change -- We've long had a self-imposed limit of 30,000 characters in each issue of TidBITS. In the interests of editing articles to improve their content, rather than to reduce their size, we're considering eliminating our strict size limit. Instead, we would have an issue size goal of 30,000 characters; if an issue was several thousand characters longer, we'd edit only as much as we felt necessary to present the best possible articles. We think this will improve our content by eliminating some last minute editing mistakes, plus remove an unnecessary task from our work each week.

However, every change has a downside. The 30,000 character limit kept issues small enough to fit through old email gateways and to display in old email programs. Most modern programs can now handle large messages, but we want to judge the potential impact of this change before making it. Some people undoubtedly still use older software; the question is, how many of these programs are still in place and how heavily are they used? If you would be affected by this change or have an opinion about it, please post to the TidBITS Talk thread on the topic. [ACE]